I
am frustrated that commonly we are not graded on our improvement.
This is the story of how a set of different paths converged
on a single point, exploded into a supernova, and left something new in its
wake. Well, okay, not really, but I feel
that way sometimes.
Converging: I had a talk with Kelli, Matt attended a seminar, Sheila got
roped into this in her employment interview, Will and Leslie drank the KoolAid.
We are too wrapped up in numbers that we lose
track of theorist of learning
When the Colleyville-Heritage physics department decided to
switch to assessing learning instead of dispensing ‘grades’, I was just
starting the process of thinking about grad school. By May, I had been admitted
into the Master’s of Education – Science Curriculum & Instruction program
at the University of Texas-Arlington. At the same time, the CHHS physics
department was knee-deep in planning to use standards based grading for the
next school year.
My currents frustrations are that grades seems to
be more important than learning. Grades should be based on WHAT you know and
your ability to apply it, rather than how well you can take a test and who can
get the highest score - because that doesn't show how much you actually know
By June, I was planning my research paper, and considering
the undertaking of the other physics teachers, I decided to do a case study on
the attitudes of AP Physics students towards the new grading system. If nothing
else, my research would give us, the physics department, valuable data about
our first year of implementation of this practice.
If you fail to turn in one assignment the grade
goes in as a zero and ruins all the hard work for the other grades
Over the summer, I read many research articles, attended
Rick Wormeli’s seminar, and brought the subject up in the AP Summer Institute.
I talked to many people, followed a few on Twitter, and continued to read
whatever I could find on the topic of standards based grading. By the end of the summer, I had developed a
research plan
Even when you don't know how to work a problem
out on homework, you still have to turn it in and get the problem wrong and
take a bad grade for something that you just didn't understand.
The first part of my plan was to survey all the AP Physics
students before they were given the new syllabus with the outline of the
grading for mastery system. I asked them
questions about their feelings about teacher bias, cheating, and the old
grading system.
The student answers supported my conviction that the CHHS
Physics department is doing the right thing.
I’ve included several quotes taken from the student responses to the
survey. These are just a small sample of the student voices telling us to keep blowing things up.
The letter grade you get is more important to
some people than what is actually learned
Our supernova is still echoing and we won’t know what it has
left behind until the year is over, but I have hopes that it will be a bright
light that . . . something, something, uh, something.
You get the idea.
The fact that grades are more important than
learning. We are forced to do well in school not because we want to but because
our future depends on it. Colleges look a lot on your rank and GPA. It is also
unfair when one teacher of the same subject/class does something different from
a different teacher. For example, one teacher may give out more extra credit or
more opportunities to raise a grade than another which is unfair to the
students in the other class who do not have the same opportunity.
